Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, pursuant to the Answer of 27 February 2023 to Question 147273 on Hormone Replacement Therapy: Prescriptions, how many women are prescribed testosterone as part of their Hormone Replacement Therapy; and what assessment he has made of the impact on those women of excluding testosterone from inclusion on the Hormone Replacement Therapy Pre-Payment Certificate.

NHS Business Services Authority (NHSBSA) holds data for primary and secondary care prescribing that has been dispensed in the community in England. In the latest 12 months for which data is available, covering the period January 2022 to December 2022, 36,754 identifiable patients with a recorded gender of female were prescribed one or more items of a testosterone medicine. The NHSBSA is unable to provide any information whether these prescriptions were issued as part of Hormone Replacement Therapy (HRT) treatment.

Testosterone has been excluded from the Hormone Replacement Therapy Pre-Payment Certificate (HRT PPC) after careful consideration and stakeholder engagement. The decision was taken as while it can be prescribed “off label” to treat menopause symptoms, it does not have a UK Marketing Authorisation (licence) for this purpose.